Jar Of Hearts
by pastelshadows
Summary: Songfic. Aggie Grace didn't want to be just another heart Zeus had claimed. Oneshot. Zeus/Ms.Grace.


**A/N: Oh my god I have no idea how this came to me. I was listening to Jar of Hearts by Christina Perri (listen to it while you're reading this, it will make so much more sense) when it hit me: Whoa, this describes the relationship perfectly! And besides, I'm a sucker for unnoticed characters, especially bringing them to a different light. I named her Aggie/Aglaia for reasons stated below. Enjoy! :)**

Jar Of Hearts

**I know I can't take one more step towards you**

It had already happened once to Aggie Grace. She couldn't let it happen again.

Oh, she saw him, all right. He was everywhere. She saw him out on the streets, in the shops, at the park … even when she closed her eyes, his smile flickered behind her eyelids.

There was an indescribable pull to it. Every time she would see him, posing as a random passerby, she would feel the immense force pulling her to go to him. She kept her feet firmly planted to the ground, even when her daughter tugged at her gently and told her to come on.

_Not again._

**Cuz all that's waiting is regret**

Aggie gave him everything. The idea of complete and total power appealed to her, true; but it wasn't just that. He saw her as more than a big-haired actress. He cared.

And then he just up and left her. No reasons, no excuses, no explanations. He just left. He was a god after all, she sometimes thought bitterly, and he had other duties, perhaps. She bet he was just leaving her for yet another woman.

But sometimes she didn't regret _all_ she did. She had gotten Thalia out of it, and Thalia was her rock.

She still wasn't ready to go back.

**And don't you know I'm not your ghost anymore**

And sometimes he would just waltz in acting like he held up the sky, which, come to think about it, he probably did (or maybe that was someone else. She didn't have enough time or willpower to check).

'Aglaia,' he would say, his voice more serious and colder than usual, 'we need to talk.'

Her back would stiffen instantly. He _never _called her by her full name before; not after she'd begged him not to. She took a deep breath and stiffened her resolve.

'No we don't, Zeus,' she snarled, pouring all her hurt and anger and pain into her words. 'I don't belong to you anymore. I'm free, and you can't try to hold me back.'

She turned. He tried to hold her back anyway. He grabbed her wrist. 'Aglaia,' he said, his powerful voice booming. 'Talk to me.'

She pulled her wrist away. 'Leave me alone,' she managed, before stomping off and slamming the door behind her.

But maybe – just maybe – freedom wasn't everything was supposed to be.

**You lost a love I love the most**

Maybe it was his attitude, this time, that reeled Aggie back in. When she finally, grudgingly agreed to speak to him, he was nothing but aloof and unapproachable. He was _cold_. He looked the same, with his black hair and electric gray eyes, but he could have been a different person for all she knew.

He lost her trust. Maybe he could win her love back, but never her trust.

**I learned to live half alive; and now you want me one more time**

She was torn apart. Figuratively, of course; being literally torn limb from limb couldn't have hurt any more either way. When she slept, haunting dreams pierced her mind, and when she was awake she felt like suffocating. Sometimes she forgot to get out of bed, let alone eat. She would just lay there, wallowing in her pain.

Thalia managed to get on by herself, those few weeks. She was only seven, too. Aggie yearned to pull herself back together, just for the sake of her beautiful understanding daughter, but she couldn't. She was too weak.

He probably knew what she was going through. But even if he didn't, he still surely couldn't expect to walk in, say a few sweet nothings and then she'd be his again.

Honestly, the nerve of that man.

**Who do you think you are, running round leaving scars**

Apparently being a god gave him a license to break her heart with his bare hands and walk away like nothing unusual had happened.

**Collecting your jar of hearts, tearing love apart**

She knew she wasn't the only one anyway. What about that guy who saved that princess from being chained to a rock or something? That was his. So were all the people in World War II. He probably had some new hearts to break, and that's why he left.

And to think he had wooed her into thinking that she was the only one he truly cared for, that he had broken his sacred oath for her, and promised to love her forever.

Yeah, right.

**You're gonna catch a cold from the ice inside your soul**

Apparently he was so icy and formal because he had come to her as his Roman counterpart. She didn't care, really. She just wanted to know _why _he came back.

**So don't come back for me, who do you think you are?**

He was nothing but a person. Just a person, but the person Aggie's heart had melted, broken, bled and wept for. He shouldn't be leading her on again. Surely it was too cruel, even for Jupiter.

**I hear you're asking all around, if I am anywhere to be found**

'Mom. Mom, wake up. Dad's here.' Thalia's small fingers shook her awake. She was awake enough at _his _mention, anyway. Her blue eyes, so like Aggie's (but with Zeus's spark) were questioning. Thalia was still young, but Aggie didn't doubt that she at least half-understood the whole mom-and-dad-have-issues thing.

'What does he want from me?' Aggie asked in a whisper, so Zeus wouldn't know she was there. He could probably hear her anyway.

'He wants to talk to you.' Thalia stared intently at her mother, who was silent for a long while, before hopping lightly off the bed.

'It's okay,' she said gently. 'I'll tell him you're not here.' And she walked out of the room to face her father, who so many people were terrified of, with the confidence of a soldier.

Aggie loved her. Sometimes it just didn't show.

**But I have grown too strong to ever fall back in your arms**

Aggie honestly did think that she had the willpower. She _wanted _to have the willpower to push him away, to tell him to leave her and never speak to her again. She wanted him to feel how she felt: rejected.

She figured out too late that she was never really one for revenge.

**And it took so long just to feel all right**

She could never forget the immense pain that would wrench her apart for so long after he left.

**Remember how to put back the light in my eyes**

Aggie stared at her reflection in the mirror. She hadn't seen a mirror in at least a fortnight. Her skin was pale and sallow, and her cheekbones were prominent through her thin face. Her blond hair, usually silky smooth, was rough, tangled and looked like a rat had nested in it. There was a whole gray streak down the side.

And her eyes. The usual glimmer in them that movie producers and TV show directors claimed were the entire reason she was hired, was gone. Her eyes were dull and flat.

And it was all because of him.

**I wish I had missed the first time that we kissed**

She sometimes wondered about how fast it had all happened. She was sitting next to him at her movie premiere. He radiated such a glow of importance that the bouncers let him in without question. He approached nobody the whole night, except Aggie. Instead of sucking up to her about how amazing she was in the film, he actually wanted to get to know her. They talked for the entire night, and made plans again. He told her that he was a god while they were watching _Thor_, ironically. She was touched that he trusted her so much, and opened her heart to her completely.

It was all so fast. Two months, and Thalia was born (extra-fast demigod pregnancy and all that), and he was gone.

**Cuz you broke all your promises**

'Oh, how will I do this alone?' Aggie had moaned after three hours straight of trying to calm Thalia down after she had woken up at five a.m. That girl sure had a set of lungs on her.

'You won't have to,' Zeus assured her. 'I'll help you.'

Aggie wiped at her teary eyes. She must look a mess. 'You told me you'd have to leave eventually,' she said quietly, staring down at the little bundle in her arms, whose neon eyes were closed and whose jet black hair, so like her father, was already growing in tufts.

'But you are the only one I broke my promise for, Aggie,' he reminded her. 'Maybe I won't have to leave, just this once.'

Her hopes soared. 'You promise?'

'I do, love,' he vowed. 'I will stay with you and Thalia as long as I can.'

She felt so much more hopeful after that. She lay down to sleep with a conscience free of guilt or worry.

But she woke up to a crying baby and no sky god anywhere in sight.

**And now you're back, you don't get to get me back**

She promised herself he wouldn't come back. Unlike Zeus, she thought, she didn't break her promises. He would never possess her again, nor have her heart to mess with as he liked, only to break it and throw it away once he got bored (like a child playing with a toy, she noted).

But Aggie was wrong. In five more months' time, she was smiling tenderly at a baby boy with misty blue eyes, and Zeus playing with Thalia while Aggie rocked Jason to sleep, and she had forgotten every promise broken, his or hers.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Ugh, it wasn't supposed to have such a sappy ending. :/ But anyway, it turned out to be a whole bunch of fun to write, even though it is horribly depressing. :P Anyway, Thalia's mom is called Aglaia because Thalia and Aglaia are two of the Three Graces. Thalia is the Grace of good cheer - ironic much? - while Aglaia is the Grace of splendor and beauty, which I think fit pretty well, no? And if you thin the name Aglaia is weird, check out Euphrosyne, the Grace of Mirth. xD Anyways, REVIEWREVIEWREVIEWW! If you don't revew I will be eternally sad and everyone will die as I release my daughter-of-Eris-the-goddess-of-chaos wrath upon them. Now, who wants that to happen?**

**I LOVE ALL OF YOU READERS! ESPECIALLY YOU! Yes, you, don't look so surprised.**


End file.
